President Obama's big economic speech at Knox College in Illinois last month was short on specific new policy proposals in general, but it lacked, in particular, any new plans to help the millions of Americans who remain unemployed. Indeed, the word "unemployment" only showed up once, to brag about its (extremely slow) downward trend.

So what would Obama be proposing if he actually made reducing unemployment a priority? Michael Strain, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute, has a great set of suggestions, many of which (perhaps surprisingly for an AEI guy) involve new government spending programs:

"Some of these suggestions involve more government action," Strain notes. "Some involve the government getting out of the way; all should be considered." Indeed. Also worth looking at is the proposal of Kevin Hassett, another AEI economist, to have the government engage in direct hiring of unemployed people.